Fast-earth: A global image caching architecture for fast access to remote-sensing data

We introduce Fast-Earth, a novel server architecture that enables rapid access to remote sensing data. Fast-Earth subdivides a WGS-84 model of the earth into small 400 × 400 meter regions with fixed locations, called plats. The resulting 3,187,932,913 indexed plats are accessed with a rapid look-up algorithm. Whereas many traditional databases store large original images as a series by collection time, requiring long searches and slow access times for user queries, the Fast-Earth architecture enables rapid access. We have prototyped a system in conjunction with a Fast-Responder mobile app to demonstrate and evaluate the concepts. We found that new data could be indexed rapidly in about 10 minutes/terabyte, high-resolution images could be chipped in less than a second, and 250 kB image chips could be delivered over a 3G network in about 3 seconds. The prototype server implemented on a very small computer could handle 100 users, but the concept is scalable. Fast-Earth enables dramatic advances in rapid dissemination of remote sensing data for mobile platforms as well as desktop enterprises.